A successful young businessman, Artyom Kabanov, is thrown unconscious into a deep basement inhabited by a colony of homeless people. Here modern slaves embroider, knit, draw, in a word, produce goods, for which they receive water and food from their master. The underground colony lives as a small state, very reminiscent of Russia with all its shortcomings and vices... Kabanov, sunk to the very social bottom, dreams of freedom, of that intoxicating freedom, which he, like money, once had in abundance. He prepares his escape for a long time and carefully and finally breaks free. But if he knew how this would turn out for him! The book was also published under the title “Grave for Lifetime Use.”